Youth and creation of civil society in Slovakia

In September 1998 the authoritarian populist prime minister of Slovakia, Vladimir Meciar, who had helped to isolate Slovakia internationally and to ensure that Slovakia was not in the first round of European enlargement along with its neighbours (Czech, Poland and Hungary), was voted out of office. The campaign to create an electoral alternative involved the widespread mobilisation of civil society and especially of youth. Youth have been consistently the strongest supporters of democratisation and of social change throughout post-communist Europe. Hence, the involvement of youth as active citizens and agents of change is crucial in the shaping of societies after communism. Empowering youth can have important consequences. This paper reports the results of a research project by the Institute for Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences to investigate the creation of civil society in Slovakia and the role of youth within it.